Johan Steensland - Crossfade (2024) [Hi-Res]

Johan Steensland was a pioneer i the prog-rich neighborhood around Uppsala in Sweden. This environment has bred bands like Kapia, HFMC, and The Flower Kings. Back in the early 80:s, Steensland was among the first who burst onto the stage with bombastic progressive rock, with influences from bands like King Crimson, Rush, and Genesis. While other local bands played rock, pop, heavy metal and punk, Steensland’s Sheik Ahmeed earned mythical status with their massive progressive gigs between 1982 and 1985.

Alongside working as a recording engineer in local Studio Pärla, Johan Steensland built his first own (8-channel) studio in 1985 and started composing a prog-rock opera, called Crossfade. This highly regarded concept piece took over three years to complete. Crossfade has now finally been professionally re-recorded and is ready for release September 9, 2024.

After the hard work with Crossfade was done in 1988, Johan set out to reach a wider, but domestic audience and hence created a progressive pop band, Position Melker, with influences from artists like Sting, Toto and Peter Gabriel. The band played gigs around Uppsala in the late 1980:s. The music of Position Melker was later professionally re-recorded and released as an album in May 2021.

Having invested so much in his music, Steensland made a huge personal change and chose a different path in 1990. He earned his PhD in Scientific Computing from Uppsala University in 2002. Despite this turn of events, Steensland composed and recorded the soul-fusion album Do Dem Slow Songs in 1999, and played gigs with the elite musicians of Uppsala around 2000.

Steensland moved with his family to California to pursue a career within science and research in 2003.

By 2008 the Steensland family was back in Sweden, and as the kids grew up, Johan slowly started working with his music again. He set out to develop as a singer and over the following years, he spent more than 5 000 hours of training to perfect his vocal technique. He also plays guitar, bass and drums; and he is a student of the trade when it comes to recording and mixing.

Position Melker was the first release after Steensland’s break from music. Now, the progressive rock-opera Crossfade is ready for release: It’s a 54-minute intense story about the aftermath of a couple’s chaotic breakup. The music is progressive and highly advanced with time signature changes, themes recurring in different shapes, and other classic prog elements.

Johan is composing new music and has several projects that he will start working on after Crossfade is released.